Pet Shop of Horrors

Los Angeles seem from an Asian Perspective

             Gun Smith Cats presents a series of action-filled adventures in the Chicago underworld centering two female bounty hunters; New York New York depicts lives of two gay men living in Manhattan; Ellio & Yvette, also set in New York, tells a tragic love story of a young couple caught in the midst of the war between two Italian mafia families. Banana Fish present far less romanticized picture of New York, seen a teenage gangster who gets accidentally involved in a global conspiracy. Red Garden is a fantastic horror series about grotesque events happening around a high school in Manhattan. Hotel Africa portrays lives of an unconventional family running a motel in a small Midwestern town and their odd boarders. None of these are written by American or produced in the United States; They are graphic novels or animated series produced by Japanese or South Korean artists and producers.

             United States has long been a familiar setting in Korean and Japanese popular culture. This tendency is more noticeable in graphic novels, animations, and genre fictions than in movies and TV series, probably for the reason that the former group do not need to be “shot” in the featured places. While depiction of European countries such as Britain, France, Italy, and Germany remains to be projection of imagination and fantasy, associated with certain stereotyped motifs such as royalty, art, mafia, and Third Reich, United States seems to be perceived as more earthly place in which real people live, not much different from Korea or Japan. Furthermore, graphic novels and animations produced in recent decades show movement from perceiving “America” as a whole to focusing on specificity of locations within the US, such as New York, Chicago, Washington DC, or small towns. However, product featuring Los Angeles as its main setting is surprisingly rare, especially considering the historical relation of the city with Korea and Japan. This tendency is even more striking compared to the ever-increasing amount of products set in New York.

             Pet Shop of Horrors by Matsuri Akino is one of those few graphic novels of which setting is Los Angeles. It is also one of the fewer “major” graphic novels, which gained immense popularity so that it continued to be serialized up to 37 episodes, published in a ten-volume book, and later made into an animated series. It was also translated into Chinese, Korean, and English, and exported to various countries. Popularity of this series, especially in Japan and South Korea, is important for two reasons: first, it proves that its representation of Los Angeles was acceptable to Korean and Japanese readers, who are not usually fond of this setting; and second, it suggests that this representation had an impact on these readers, who are not exposed to many popular images of the city. By analyzing the representation of Los Angeles in Pet shop of Horrors, and by comparing them to the images of New York in other products, I will attempt to explain the images of Los Angeles and the place of the city in Asian popular imagination.

Pet Shop of Horrors consists of 37 independent episodes centering a mysterious pet shop in Chinatown of Los Angeles and its equally mysterious owner, Count D. Although each episode tells a different story, without a narrative link with the preceding one, all of them can be contained within the genre of fantasy. They are also penetrated by the continuing theme of desire and duality. The pet shop is repeatedly mentioned as a place where “you are sure to find what you want,” which is made possible by the magical quality of Count D and his animals. Nothing in this pet shop is what it seems to be: here mythical or imaginary animals reside in the guise of ordinary pets or humans, or commonplace animals reveal their true nature. Even the architecture of the pet shop is deceiving: like Michael Ende’s fantastic architecture, its interior consists of uncountable luxurious rooms and endless intricate labyrinth that cannot be contained by small exterior.

In the beginning of the series, Chinatown is described as a location of fantasy and exoticness: “a city of illusion, surpassing your common sense and imagination, full of treasures from all over the world,” in which “you are sure to find what you want.” L.A., on the other hand, is a site of desire, from which customers of varying class, ethnicity, and concerns are drawn to this shop by the rumors that “you are sure to find what you want in this pet shop.”

Language of fantasy and desire, combined with exoticness and otherness, characterizes the whole series. The featured pet shop sells mythical or fantastic animals that will fulfill the desire of the clients and eventually bring forth miracles, disasters, or both. Count D, the owner of the pet shop, is himself a supernatural being, although most locals perceive him as no more than an “eccentric Chinese.” There is a subtle joke in a way in which the foreignness of the pet shop and its owner is used to explain every inexplicable happening involving them. Although it is clear that both Count D and his pet shop are beyond any logical explanation, most locals and clients fail or refuse to acknowledge their supernatural qualities. To them, it is only natural that D and his pets are strange and incomprehensible because they are foreign. Here L.A. is presented as a city of multiplicity, where different cultures are accepted as a norm but not necessarily understood by one another.

The only exception is Leon Alcott, a young police detective, whose role is most close to the protagonist of the series. Early in the series, he discovers that a number of strange incidents happening in L.A. are linked by D and his pet shop. From then on, he continues to investigate D. Unfortunately, Detective Alcott is portrayed as a typical American policeman, hardworking, down-to-earth, protective of innocent citizens and unforgiving to the violators of law, and believing in no nonsense. Thus his investigation is always blocked by his own refusal to believe in the paranormal in almost every episode.

It is tempting to read Pet Shop of Horrors as a clash between mysterious Asian culture, embodied by Count D and his pet shop, and rational, pragmatic American or Western culture, represented by Detective Alcott and D’s customers. However, a closer look into the episodes reveals that conflicts in Pet Shop of Horrors cannot be grasped in the simplistic dichotomy of Asian and Western culture. The animals sold in D’s pet shop are not always if Asian origin: often they are creatures from European legends, such as Basilisk, or simply imaginary animals. Sometimes they are ordinary pets seen from different perspective. Not are all his customers stereotypical Americans. On the contrary, characters in Pet Shop of Horrors display striking variety, ranging from ordinary middle-class children to a former Hollywood star, an ambitious politician, Chinese mafia, and Latin American terrorists.

Consequently, each episode takes different form of genre, presenting different problem and desire. Although “Daughter,” an episode featuring overly indulgent parents who loses their daughter twice because of their inability to say “no” to her, and “Delicious,” a story of an upper-class man who thinks his new pet fish is a mermaid resembling his deceased wife, can be both contained within the genre of “horror,” the latter is closer to a mystery thriller while the former takes form of a modern cautionary tale. On the other hand, “Despair,” a story of a former Hollywood star and the legendary “Basilisk,” is a tragic love story with little elements of horror. There are also crime stories, political thriller, and coming-of-ages stories with fantastic elements.

Meanwhile, multiplicity and diversity of Los Angeles is more and more emphasized indirectly by the variety of episodes. At some point, multifacetedness ceases to be a unique characteristic of Los Angeles and becomes a force that undermines the uniqueness of the city. In other words, Los Angeles is viewed as a city that contains so many aspects that it does not have any coherent characteristic. In the end of Pet Shop of Horrors, Los Angeles is no more a specific city but an empty space in which anything can happen and any story can be told. Excessive diversity of episodes overwhelms the main plot. Matsuri’s skill is manifested through her decision to close the series by making Count D and his pet shop “disappear” in Los Angeles rather than forcing a grand finale.

This view corresponds to the image of Los Angeles inside the United States. The official slogan of Los Angeles, “Los Angeles Brings It All Together” (Davis 20), perfectly describes Los Angeles of Pet Shop of Horrors, a city in which everything can happen and in fact happens. Even Mike Davis, who is critical about the valorized image of the city that “boosters” attempt to promote, agrees on that Los Angeles in fact “brings together” different features, images, and problems. He perceives Los Angeles as a sum of urban disasters: “Although other American cities betray some of these tendencies—that is, Faustian economic restructuring, social porosity, elite anti-semitism, central place competitions, internalization of class formation, extreme political fragmentation, and disenfranchisement of the inner city—none…‘brings it all together like Los Angeles” (104). He also sees it as a city that lost its essence in the midst of different images, compiled one over another, by parties with different agenda. Finally, Robert Gottlieb regards Los Angeles as a “representative” city, reflecting tendencies of many other metropolitan cities, both in and out of the United States (Gottlieb 2).

It seems that Matsuri, too, came to believe that Los Angeles is representative of all the other cities in the world, in the course of piling up diverse cultures, characters, incidents of her own imagination in her Los Angeles. Thus, she relocates Count D and his pet shop in New Chinatown of Tokyo instead of returning him to Los Angeles. Los Angeles in her imagination has become “every city,” an empty signifier that can speak for any other metropolis but does not have characteristic of its own. Is it true, then, that Los Angeles is transferable with any other cities in Asian imagination?

Readers’ reception says otherwise. Although New Pet Shop of Horrors has been a commercial success so far, both in Japan and South Korea, it is nothing compared to the fame and popularity of its predecessor. Even the readers of the sequel seem to agree that the new series is inferior to the original one. A number of fans have commented that New Pet Shop of Horrors is “disappointing,” and some of its supporters choose to appreciate it “without thinking of the preceding series.” An online reviewer commented that the new series is “boring” because its episodes are “repetitive” and lack variety of the predecessor. Another gave a more detailed explanation, linking the contents of the series with its setting and characters: “Pet Shop of Horrors always has been a story criticizing humans… Difference [between the original and the new series] is felt… because now there is no foil character such as Detective Leon, who offers ‘human perspectives’ to the incidents. Without Leon and his colleagues, readers feel too detached from the story.”

These comments indicate that Asian readers find a link between Pet Shop of Horrors, a series with such diverse episodes that its main plot becomes almost incoherent, and Los Angeles, a city of which diversity verges on amorphousness. Los Angeles, then, does have a specific image in Asian imagination that cannot be easily replaced by that of any other city, despite its tendency to be perceived as a city without unique features. Unfortunately, in the case of Pet Shop of Horrors, the readers have realized it before the author.

Works Cited

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. New York: Vintage

Books, 1992.

Gottlieb, Robert, et al. The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City. Berkeley,

             Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2005.

Matsuri, Akino. Pet Shop of Horrors. 10 vols. Seoul: Seoul Munhwasa, 1998.

_____. New Pet Shop of Horrors. 3 vols. Seoul: Seoul Munhwasa, 2007.

Park, Hee-jung. Hotel Africa. 5 vols. Seoul: Seoul Munhwasa, 1998.

Red Garden. GONZO. TV Asahi, Tokyo. Oct. 2006-.

Sonoda, Kenichi. Gunsmith Cats. 8 vols. Seoul: Seju Munwha, 1998.

Vega. “New Pet Shop of Horrors.” Living on the Earth. 1 Mar 2007.

<http://blog.naver.com/vega0219?Redirect=Log&logNo=80015263276>.

Won, Soo-yun. Ellio & Yvette. 10 vols. Seoul: Daewon, 1998-1999.

Yoshida, Akimi. Banana Fish. 19 vols. Seoul: Shigongsa, 1999-2000.

Zamboni. Comments on “About Discussion on (New) Pet Shop of Horrors within our

Club.” 25 Aug 2006. 1 Mar 2007. <http://sanwang78.egloos.com/1106031>.

Cafealpha. “Arbitrary Review on New Pet Shop of Horrors.” Question. 1 Mar 2007.